Join us as we dive into the process of how Dua Lipa and Mark Ronson created 'Barbie's' smash hit, 'Dance the Night'. In this exclusive behind the song video, the two break down the various musical layers that craft the dance track of the year.
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00:00 There's definitely some weird things in here too, like this little turnaround
00:03 that's like the part just before the chorus.
00:05 Hi, I'm Mark Ronson.
00:13 Hey, I'm Dua Lipa and we're gonna take you behind the song 'Dance The Night.'
00:16 So Greta said she wanted a big disco number that was gonna speak for
00:28 Barbie's best day ever.
00:30 So I had an idea that it was gonna be something up-tempo, but that was really it.
00:34 And, you know, after three days I tried a couple of different ideas
00:37 and I didn't think I had anything that was perfect yet.
00:40 And then they were like, "Well, can you just send us anything?"
00:42 I was like, "What do you mean anything?"
00:43 "Well, I don't know, just like a click track."
00:45 So I finally actually got a track that I really felt good about and I sent it in.
00:50 And that was the instrumental, the very raw version of what became 'Dance The Night.'
00:54 ♪ Watch me dance, dance the night away ♪
00:59 ♪ My heart could be burning but you won't see it on my face ♪
01:03 I know I was making it with Dua in mind.
01:05 I was on tour last year, quite relentlessly, for a whole year.
01:10 And I just got a DM on Instagram from Mark.
01:15 He basically just reached out and was like, "I'm working on this film with Greta."
01:19 "There's this big dance number and I would love you to write it with me."
01:24 I was so intrigued at what Barbie was going to be, what was it about.
01:29 The next opening of dates that I had, I flew to New York.
01:32 We were also saying, "Oh, maybe we'll work a little bit on my album and then a little bit on Barbie."
01:37 But Barbie just completely took over our life.
01:39 We were completely Barbified.
01:41 There was Barbie dolls everywhere here.
01:43 We were just putting Post-it notes everywhere, trying to brainstorm what 'Dance The Night' was going to be.
01:48 We worked on melodies for a while.
01:50 We had a little SM7 in the room.
01:53 He'd already made the track that the cast were all rehearsing to.
01:57 It's kind of interesting because usually when I work on something and I work on it from scratch,
02:01 there's so much leeway to change bits.
02:03 But we had to obviously stick pretty tight to what the score already was.
02:08 So it was just a really fun jigsaw.
02:12 When you start a song, what are you doing?
02:13 Just going to a keyboard or a guitar or sometimes I pick up the bass and it's like,
02:18 "The umpteenth millionth time I've ever tried to do this, how am I going to find four chords today
02:22 that just feel like something I haven't done before?"
02:24 And sometimes you don't need brand new chords.
02:26 Maybe you need an exciting production element.
02:28 But Greta had referenced the BG's a lot.
02:31 We think of the songs as kind of like upbeat, fluffy disco, but a lot of the chords and the beats and the rhythms,
02:37 especially on 'Dang Alive' era, it's really tough.
02:40 So I was sitting at that Rhodes right there and I came up with this chord progression.
02:45 [playing chords]
02:53 They're just kind of a little almost sinister and stuff.
02:56 And actually that's what I love about a lot of Dua's music as well.
03:00 The chords are, even though there's a disco element to it, the chords are kind of like dark and moody.
03:05 So with those chords.
03:06 [playing chords]
03:09 And then I came up with this string line.
03:11 [playing chords]
03:21 The chords and these French producers that I work quite a bit with, the Picard brothers,
03:25 they take like old samples and then whatever I've played in the chords,
03:29 they just change the samples to fix what I've done.
03:33 So by taking this weird string sample that they had,
03:37 they made this weird [imitates string sample] like that you hear.
03:41 [playing chords]
03:45 So I had the melody [imitates melody]
03:49 but under it there's this sort of murky chord movement happening.
03:52 Then we had the real strings play live.
03:55 So it really started with those things and then, like most of my productions,
03:59 the next important thing was to have a bass line.
04:03 So on top of those chords you had...
04:05 [playing bass line]
04:18 Then when we really went in and at this point we had a pretty good idea of the footage
04:23 and we had it and we like fired up the TV screen here and Dua was on the couch
04:27 and she just started freestyling lyrics as Margot was dancing.
04:31 The part when I was like, "This is..." I got chills and I was like,
04:33 "This is really going somewhere," was when Margot does that thing
04:36 and Dua was like, "Oh, I want to sing, like, 'Come Along for the Ride' right there."
04:40 [Dua singing]
04:45 So we were watching it and then I just felt really compelled to be able to have
04:49 the lyrics really merge with the dancing and what was happening in the scene as well.
04:54 So we really fine-tuned it every little moment.
04:57 It's also like a moment where it goes, "Turn the music up," and they're putting their hands up.
05:01 It's just like little bits like that, little details that I think made such a big difference
05:05 in, I think, when people saw the film.
05:07 Because "Dance the Night" came out before "Barbie,"
05:09 so it was kind of like the first taste of what's to come.
05:12 So it was a little bit of the story, the kind of happy, glitzy, disco element that Greta really wanted.
05:19 Okay, so what is Barbie about and what is the story going to be and why is she saying this?
05:24 And when people watched the film, then it all kind of matched up together.
05:27 It was very interesting to see people's reaction to both hearing the song on its own
05:33 to watching it then with the film.
05:35 Everything is played pretty live except for the drums,
05:39 which I programmed and also did with the Picard brothers.
05:43 [Drums playing]
05:47 I mean, some of the percussion is live.
05:49 [Drums playing]
05:52 That's the other thing that's kind of hidden in there as well.
05:54 There's an acoustic guitar that's not the first thing you think of when you think of disco music.
05:59 But there was just something about the strumming in it that just kind of kept it moving.
06:04 [Drums playing]
06:12 It's so layered underneath that it gives that really beefy sound underneath with the bass and the guitar.
06:18 It's all just little sprinkles that make it.
06:20 But there's definitely some weird things in here too,
06:23 like this little turnaround that's the part just before the chorus.
06:26 [Drums playing]
06:32 So that's three bars and then a bar of two,
06:36 which is just half a bar, which is a very unusual sort of structure for a pop.
06:40 But it just felt good, so we just tried to work around it.
06:43 Yeah, so this is the lead.
06:44 ♪ Baby, you can find me under the lights ♪
06:49 ♪ Diamonds under my eyes ♪
06:51 ♪ Turn the rhythm up, don't you wanna just come along for the ride ♪
06:55 And then Dua Laid all these backgrounds under it that are sort of like whisper vocals, right?
07:02 ♪ Baby, you can find me under the lights ♪
07:06 ♪ Diamonds under my eyes ♪
07:08 ♪ Turn the rhythm up, don't you wanna just come along for the ride ♪
07:12 ♪ Ooh, my outfit's so tight ♪
07:14 ♪ You can see my heartbeat tonight ♪
07:17 ♪ I can take the heat, baby, best believe that's the moment I shine ♪
07:21 It's exactly, it's Barbie's inner thoughts.
07:22 It's trying to show a brave face while there's some inner turmoil happening
07:28 and kind of getting a little bit confused about this kind of duality that's happening within her
07:34 that was so unnatural for her at the time.
07:36 To the human experience, it's the most natural thing.
07:38 It's kind of like being able to move forward and progress in life
07:42 even when things aren't going your way or that kind of optimism that you have to keep going with
07:49 even when things aren't going right, basically.
07:52 ♪ Make no choice ♪
07:54 ♪ It's a good dance, a good dance, a good dance ♪
07:59 I think the thing that I really, really love is that weird, murky string chord that's happening
08:04 that almost feels like shifting plates, that this part that we were talking about.
08:09 ♪
08:17 So it's this thing that was created weirdly from a sample that then we had the orchestra actually play live.
08:23 So the kind of violas are going one way and the violins are going the other
08:26 and that just with the vocal even is quite exciting to me.
08:30 ♪ Watch me dance, dance the night away ♪
08:35 ♪ My heart could be burning but you won't see it on my face ♪
08:38 ♪ Watch me dance, dance the night away ♪
08:43 ♪ I'll still keep the party running, I won't hear out of place ♪
08:47 Far be it for me to say, but that's sort of the sign of a good song and a vocal
08:53 when you can literally just listen to the strings and the lead.
08:56 I find it quite harmonically rich and actually fulfilling like that.
09:00 ♪ I could dance, I could dance, I could dance ♪
09:05 ♪ Watch me dance ♪
09:08 The bridges actually was just a moment to step it down a little bit
09:12 because there was just so much going on through the rest of the song.
09:15 I think you just wrote it just to the drum, there were no chords.
09:19 Yeah, really, really simple.
09:20 ♪ Even when the tears are flowing, there are diamonds on my face ♪
09:24 ♪ I'll still keep the party going, I won't hear out of place ♪
09:28 I'm such a fan of like talky, chanty moments in songs.
09:33 I love when things have variety and they go up and down and it gives you a different emotion
09:38 and a different feeling and it takes you away from something that's so pop and big
09:44 and then it brings you down for a second and it gives you just a different groove,
09:48 a different way to dance to it.
09:50 I feel like I love all that variation so much.
09:53 And I love also the ad-libs through the chanty bit that are there.
09:57 ♪ Even when the tears are flowing, there are diamonds on my face ♪
10:02 ♪ I'll still keep the party going, I won't hear out of place ♪
10:06 And then the vocals is like a mixture of you and I think Caroline and it has such like...
10:11 I'm an old guy so all my references are kind of old but it just reminds me of the Jacksons
10:15 just if we just solo it for a minute.
10:17 ♪ When my heart breaks ♪
10:19 ♪ You can never see it, never see it ♪
10:21 ♪ When my world shakes ♪
10:23 ♪ I feel alive, I feel alive ♪
10:25 ♪ I don't play safe, don't you know about me ♪
10:30 ♪ I could dance, I could dance, I could dance, dance the night ♪
10:35 It's a freestyle in the moment of like you hear something and you're like,
10:39 alright you know you're about to crescendo into another big part of the chorus
10:44 so it's like how do we lead into that, what are the little bits that you add into it
10:49 to join it all together to make it all that more special.
10:51 It just gives everything like texture.
10:53 And also I think that one you really just came up with live when you were finally in the booth recording.
10:58 Like we were just like, they were all just so cool and I think Dua just has like such a cool rhythmic
11:04 like understanding when to put stuff in so a lot of those were just ones like completely on the fly
11:08 and we were all like here in this room going like, getting all excited like me, Andrew and Carolyn you know.
11:14 There's not a lot of like, in different songs that we've worked on that have had like different effects
11:18 and maybe more like modern things.
11:20 This is just kind of just that's the instruments and the vocals do most of the talking.
11:25 There is one guitar part that only comes on in the middle in the bridge.
11:29 It was so exciting even the first time hearing it on the radio and then going to see it in the theater.
11:42 I remember having a really sweet conversation with Greta too because it was like the weekend the song came out
11:47 it was like all over Z100 and all the radio stations that we all grew up listening to.
11:51 She was like, I got so excited but then I got sad because we've been working on it for so long
11:55 and now it's out does it mean like it's over or something you know it's all of these emotions you know.
12:00 All these things are still so exciting.
12:04 It's so cool especially like when you work so hard on something and you put so much love and time and effort
12:11 into trying to make something really special and to see like your peers liking it and feeling like they want to vote for it
12:18 and you know you get a nomination it's the best feeling.
12:21 [Music]
12:31 [BLANK_AUDIO]